First brew of the year! Very lax, I know, but it's been cold and a lots been going on etc. No more excuses, I was determined I would brew on Sunday come what may. What came was the wettest day of the year which I spent trudging back and forth between the brew shed, taking care to remove shoes and rain mack each time I came back to the house, lest the missus beat me with the mop she had to continually use. Oddly this extra diligence made me more careful with the brew as well, so it was a kind of back to basics effort, with attention to detail (with one exception) that has been lacking in my last few brews.
So, it was a Hobgoblin clone, which I have recently got into. Theres something about it that separates it from the crowd, maybe the leaning towards the Poachers Choice flavours. Again, there is nothing in the brew references I usually use, namely Wheeler's "Brew Your Own British Real Ale" and Szamatulski's "Clone Brews", so I turned to the interweb for inspiration. Jim's Beer Kit forum had one or two suggestions but I settled on the one I found on the Brew UK forum (reposted from Matt's Beer Kitchen blog).
Grain
4800g Pale Malt250g Crystal Malt
200g Carapils
150g Chocolate Malt
The recipe calls for 150g Chocolate malt. Recent errors and experience of how dark this can make your beer I opted to halve it to 75g, to ensure I didnt overdo it. Once again the brew-monkey was on hand to mix it up, but that was her second to last appearance of the day, the weather being the deciding factor in her decision. Can't say I blame her ...Hops
Hop schedule was as follows. the 60 minute hops were added just pre-boil as it was coming to temperature , and the late hops after flame-out.
15g Styrian Goldings - 60 min boil
15g Fuggles - 60 minute boil
15g Styrian Goldings - 30 min boil
15g Fuggles - 30 minute boil
15g Styrian Goldings - 60 min post boil
15g Fuggles - 60 minute post boil
Mash
I used 13 litres for the mash for 90 mins @ 68'C, using the 2.5:1 liquor to grain ratio. It was very thin, the thinnest one I have had. Looked more like soup than the malt porridge I'm used to. Perhaps my measurements on the HLT need a revisit...
It lost about a degree over 90 mins in some areas of the grain bed, others seem to have gained half a degree. Need to revisit my thermometer too, as well as stirring the grain into the liquor better to reduce those hot spots. Overall the temperature stayed within a degree or so.
Mash out and sparge usually stops at 990 on the hydrometer, with subsequent "liquoring back" from the HLT to make up the volume, but curiously the reading didn't drop to 990 even when I had 23+ litres in the boiler. Might be a strong one ...
Boil
The trusty Electrim boiler managed an almost constant 100'C for the duration. Boil foam at the start went mad whilst I was posting on Facebook and covered the shelf with hops - which was the aforementioned exception to the heightened diligence :). I rescued some and I think/hope the overall loss was negligable.Being a 60 minute boil I opted not to liquor back and lost about 2 litres to the boil in evaporation. I added the post boil hops at flame out and stuck the chiller on, then went for a cuppa and some cake. Chilling from boiling to 27'C took about 25 mins and the temperature after dropping into the FV was 19'C. Was cold out there, no mistake.
Just shy of 20 litres made it into the FV.
Yeast
I used Danstar Nottingham. The instructions are a bit unusual in that you need to revive the yeast in water 35'C for 15 minutes then add it slowly to quantities of wort until it reaches the temperature of the rest of the wort. Not too arduous though, as the yeast was pitched within 30 mins and the FV currently looks like a movie still of a planet from Star Trek (left). Smells good too. This is the first time with this yeast, but I've read some good things about it.Gravity
1060 @ 21'C...
I checked it again, and yes, 1060 @ 21'C. Depending on where this finishes up, we are looking at around the 6% mark. Hobgoblin is 5.2% so it may finish higher than the usual 1010-1015 and give maybe 5.5%. Not a session beer though this one :)
I can only assume that not having to add to the boiler (therefore dilute) to make up volume and not liquoring back in the short boil has led to this being higher in gravity than expected. What I would have expected was 1052-1055. Shows what I know ...
The colour is a little lighter than Hobgoblin, and I dont think the redness is there. I think my caution with the chocolate malt may be the reason for this, but it's not too far out. I'm still of the opinion that 150g would have been too much though. The taste will be the real test of course.
Fermentation updates to follow!
Oh my word... Not wanting to blow ones own trumpet as it were, but this is outstanding! No real credit to the brewer though really as the guy who came up with the recipe is the real star.
FG was 1016 giving an ABV of around 5.9%.
